You must be the exception that proves the rule. Or you have got a rich hubby.

My husband’s wealth is my wealth, Max. We have been married for 38 years and have built up a nice business (and other stuff) through solid hard work.

Yesterday was a site clean and we both worked like navvies…unlike Rosie my avatar, I forgot to tie my hair up in a scarf and ended up with that horrible condition known as ‘cement hair’. Thank goodness for Pantene.

Max
#1219017, posted on March 10, 2014 at 2:50 pm
Why would I want my brother’s money? Of course it goes to his partner

You must be the exception that proves the rule. Or you have got a rich hubby.

With a casual glance around any workplace you’ll see legions of men who have put in 25, 30, 50 years of full-time work, and only 1 woman for every 100-500 male workhorses.

The rest are down at David Jones, in-fact you can find them there right now….. milling about….doing F#k all…. calculating their life insurance and other death lotto winnings sure to come off the workweary back of every poor sod unlucky enough to come withing their overinflated orbits…

Women simply don’t do the hard slog of capital accumulaton. But the’ll shoot up to the Will reading faster than a Retiree at the Thai massage palour on Pension day.

Err, hopefully one day I will be a rich husband with a hot young french etc wife.

I’m gonna draw a line in the sand. Women born around 1988 or later – I think they genuinely believe in equality.

Women born before this are suspect, right up to 1945. Usually they believe in left wing feminism because it has been drilled into them in our pathetic, compromised schools where communists (I shit you not) have walked their long marches, and misandry is part of the package.

Ideas like men discussing how women objectify men is “sexist” need to be verbally annihilated in a chauvinist fashion. The same women who believe this crap will then go to a male strip show or get drunk as any man and can act just as promiscuously.

Ah well. I suppose in this postmodern world, we can all play the definition changing game, and feminism and equality now mean “screwing white men”. Pity about the honest folk that believed in plain language.

Im just saying that logic would surely dictate that one group cannot wholly be beyond suspicion as it seems to be in the leftist media.

Before the sentence of the vile men reminded us of the way the ABC & David Marr via Fauxfact shielded them, I would’ve believe there is an interest in protecting children. Now it is clear this is confected outrage in a pathetic attempt at misdirection.

“There is nothing normal about a child being created by strangers for money to be sold to anybody, heterosexual or homosexual. It is human trafficking.”

Precisely Gabrielle. I shrink enough from the conventional prostitution I see traveling in Asia, which manipulates teenagers from impoverished provincial into a grubby playground in the cities for not so cashed up blokes to slobber over and boast about. Whenever I’ve encountered these grubs, here or there, they get a first class Mk50 for their corner.

We buy our rice here in 25kg bags, the income earned by those teenagers affords their families a cup of rice for the next day and a blessed relief. The poverty one sees would move a man to tears and I can understand the helplessness that drives that business.

I don’t pretend to understand the more evil trade over there in young children, as prey for ugly fat guttural northern Europeans and every other visitor, beyond knowing it is plain wrong. For these animals it is a lifetime obsession, they live only for the next disgusting sex tour and their victims are as a piece of chewed gum to be spat out on the footpath when they’re done with it.

These blokes are more than halfway through their typically privileged, wealthy depraved lives and they enthusiastically deprive the innocent of any life at all merely for their momentary sexual gratification.

To my mind summary execution is the only solution and yet I see a society – an advanced educated middle class society – on this very day in Queensland entering its eleventh year of ensuring pristine protection for the accused in the Morcombe case. What chance does a street urchin in Kuta or Saigon or Phnom Penh have?

No DB, C.L called these women whores, which is reprehensible. His assumptions about their mental capacity are offensive to all.

So dot answers my response by talking about what CL purportedly said.

I’m right.

Ahaha.

We also don’t decide what rights people have in Thailand.

True, but you’ve defend the right of Australians going to Thailand to procure a child even though commercial surrogacy is illegal here in Australia. And for the life of me, I’ve never seen you take this line of argument relating to property rights, etc. in Thailand or elsewhere.

Even if what C.L has in mind comes from the catechism.

Wow. You really need to ease off the sectarianism. Next you’ll be accusing CL and I of taking our marching orders from the Vatican.

Gab
#1219023, posted on March 10, 2014 at 2:56 pm
Of course, I never advocated that people “sell kids”. Of course, I forgive Gab for being glib.

Insult me as much as you like but you do actually advocate selling kids. You’ve been advocating it for the most part of the day.

I forgive you again, Gab. I’m not one to damn children in Claymore, SW Sydney to a life of poverty and poor parenting (or abuse). Let’s be honest. Macquarie Fields is a ghetto and the kids would be better raised by fertile or infertile, straight or gay couples on the north shore. The same goes for many outstations and camps in the NT.

Maybe this is a good argument against surrogacy. We shouldn’t do it until all the children that exist currently have a good standard of living.

Both! Since a significant percentage of the population think that Whitlam and Rudd were good PM’s, I’m not sure that the game won’t work with cars. Perhaps there are more misinformed (i.e. brain dead) people around than you think?

“Speaking just for myself, I seriously doubt that. In fact, I’m sure at times I under estimate their number.” (finishing off) …. despite the knowledge that I am always overly generous in that calculation.

Wow. You really need to ease off the sectarianism. Next you’ll be accusing CL and I of taking our marching orders from the Vatican.

That’s impossible anyway. Nor would I juke up such a silly statement.

C.L should be upfront and not judge surrogates like that.

The reason I continue to rip you and C.L about the justification of your ideas is that even if you are right – you are not going to convince anyone else beyond the small proportion of church going Christians.

If conservatism has value, it can appeal to a wider audience. It will never do so justified on religious grounds, not even of a large denomination.

I may be being a bit obtuse here, but isn’t Dover arguing a moral issue and Dot an economic one?

There may be times where both are in agreement, but there are others when they are at opposite poles. So can they really be compared or given equal weight – one is right according to his lights, and the other according to (I guess) free and open markets.

The only trouble I see here is that we are dealing with people, not ‘things’.

Perhaps there are more misinformed (i.e. brain dead) people around than you think?

LOL, you got my message and illustrated in a better way than I could imagine.

I had just finished listening to Paul Murray Live and as I flagged earlier a “supposedly” learned lefty journalist proved just how brain dead so many people are in a number of rants including 1. Workchoices, 2. Da Murdoch & Da Meeja. You can bet he voted for Gillard in that poll.

the kids would be better raised by fertile or infertile, straight or gay couples on the north shore.

Dot sounds practical, and I can see his point, even though the cool calculation is somewhat confronting (cf the reaction of several others in this thread). The harms of poverty are large and well-understood, the harms of being raised by gay couples are debatable. Whether we like it or not, children adopted or otherwise acquired by gay couples are going to be part of a huge experiment with consequences that won’t be fully known for decades. For all our sakes’, I hope Dot is right.

I forgive you again, Gab. I’m not one to damn children in Claymore, SW Sydney to a life of poverty and poor parenting (or abuse). Let’s be honest. Macquarie Fields is a ghetto and the kids would be better raised by fertile or infertile, straight or gay couples on the north shore. The same goes for many outstations and camps in the NT.

No, You’re throwing distractions around again. Stay on topic. These children were not specifically created by strangers, for money, from another land, to give some poor third world woman a better life by selling off her child to strangers of which she has no idea how they would treat her child. The child’s rights doesn’t come into it as long as money is involved. The focus is all on the adults procuring a child for their pleasure. Your argument is the same argument homosexual marriage activists use – as well as convenience-driven abortion activists – for treating children like they have no rights at all, like their only purpose is to make adults feel fulfilled or relieved of a burden, as in the case of abortions.

The only trouble I see here is that we are dealing with people, not ‘things’.

Which is why we should take more kids off their parents. Just because you got it for free and in the throes of passion doesn’t mean you get to subject it to a life of (absolute) poverty, neglect, starvation, substance abuse, other abuse etc.

Friggin’ companion animals have more rights than this.

The worst thing Australia has done as a society recently is swallow the codswallop that removing Aboriginal children from their families was ALWAYS wrong. The fact that many worked as bonded servants until they come of age was definitely wrong.

My presumption about the rights people have in Thailand is that I don’t have the authority to take them off the Thais.

This is a red herring. No one here is arguing that we have the authority to change Thai law; I simply argued that we certainly have the authority to prevent Australian citizens, etc. from returning to Australia with children they’ve bought overseas. Period.

Unlike you, I don’t want to decide what rights they have.

They don’t have a ‘right’ to sell their children for the same reasons that cotton-farmers in the antebellum South had no ‘right’ to buy and sell blacks. If you can’t see that, so much the worse for you, dot.

Your argument is the same argument homosexual marriage activists use – as well as convenience-driven abortion activists – for treating children like they have no rights at all, like their only purpose is to make adults feel fulfilled or relieved of a burden, as in the case of abortions.

That isn’t my argument at all, actually. I have never said children don’t have rights, nor have I ever presumed that surrogacy makes that so.

You keep on glibly changing what I say I believe in, though.

FWIW, I am not opposed to abortion legally, but believe it is abused on the basis of convenience, which is quite sad and I find that rather confronting.

The reason I continue to rip you and C.L about the justification of your ideas is that even if you are right – you are not going to convince anyone else beyond the small proportion of church going Christians.

I am not a church going Christian however I believe that homosexuals should not be allowed to adopt kids. Apart from the fact that children are best off with a mother and father, the situation of the jailed kiddy fiddlers was entirely predictable.

They don’t have a ‘right’ to sell their children for the same reasons that cotton-farmers in the antebellum South had no ‘right’ to buy and sell blacks. If you can’t see that, so much the worse for you, dot.

You have tin ears. Never have I said should we sell people, but what I did say was to the effect of: to sell the right to act as their legal guardian.

“Sorry liberals, but there really is a Texas miracle, and it has nothing to do with “multipliers.” It is explained by the fact that working class people like to move to states with low living costs (due to flexible zoning), and businesses and high skilled professionals like to move to states with low income taxes. The working class cares more about the low living costs than the fact that Texas offers less expensive welfare programs than California. They come to Texas to work, not to collect welfare. The businesses bring them the capital they need to be productive workers.”

The only trouble I see here is that we are dealing with people, not ‘things’.

But this is frequently the problem.

Politician thunders: “You can’t put a value on a human life.”

Alas, reality requires that we do. Given a finite (at a particular time) amount of money, spending more on disease X requires spending less on something else. And this inevitably means that, at some point, we do have to consider the costs of particular actions: quantify human life.

I’m not buying into the ongoing stoush (like Mick, I lost track some time back) but a simple moral versus economic contrast won’t cut it.

I have never said children don’t have rights, nor have I ever presumed that surrogacy makes that so.

You’ve been banging on about how gays and heteros have the right to pay third world women to produce a child for sale. Not once have you said anything about the rights of the child. But please, I do so enjoy your calling me glib at every opportunity. It says more about you than me.

The reason I continue to rip you and C.L about the justification of your ideas is that even if you are right – you are not going to convince anyone else beyond the small proportion of church going Christians.

dot, I’ve never mentioned the Catechism and never used it in arguments against surrogacy, etc. yet you continually make the above assertion.

So, isn’t what matters is how they get treated?

So, isn’t what matters is how they get treated?

I, a naive young man, assume a lot of kids are procured, even produced on the basis of pleasure, with no care about what happens later.

I am not a church going Christian however I believe that homosexuals should not be allowed to adopt kids. Apart from the fact that children are best off with a mother and father, the situation of the jailed kiddy fiddlers was entirely predictable.

Don’t be so arrogant as to think that you speak for all atheists.

Why was it predictable? Why do you presume I’m an atheist?

Oh so now you’ve just decided to ignore surrogacy for money and decide to employ the “look over there” tactic as a deflection. For the second time.

No, I didn’t. I otherwise answered the question and you ignored both of mine in response.

So buying and selling human beings is fine provided they’re well treated?

That is not what I propose.

Of course, if I bought a slave to free them – that would be commendable (unless this created a moral hazard where the slavers then enslaved more people to earn more income off me – morally we’d have to start killing the slavers).

Anyone who thinks removing kids from remote Aboriginal communities, raising them in decent families and paying out the abusive biological families is a form of slavery is hysterical.

Which is a shame because it is the kind of policy which would destroy generational poverty and bring the most evil and backwards places in this nation into the 21st century.

Surrogacy is not human trafficking or slavery. To say so is even more hysterical.

You have tin ears. Never have I said should we sell people, but what I did say was to the effect of: to sell the right to act as their legal guardian.

Which is a wholly different concept.

No, it isn’t dot. To sell a “right to act as their legal guardian” is effectively to provide parents a right to “sell their children.” What does the buyer gain? The care and custody of the child. Could they gain more? No. You really are plumbing the depths here, dot.

The sad thing is the main issue should be how the ABC facilitated and then excused 2 people buying a child to rape and sexually abuse along with their p3dophile mates. This act should be another nail in the ABC coffin.

Surrogacy is not human trafficking or slavery. To say so is even more hysterical.

Its just as bad. As CL said above it is deliberately denying the rights of the child to have a mother. And god knows what pressure the surrogate mothers are put under. If its anything like the 3rd world I have seen the’ll be some agressive male organiser, or “handler” involved in the “transaction” taking a very large cut (like 50-70%) or somehow swindling the surrogate mothers out of 100%. Many of these people are crushed, they have learned helplessness.

Alas, reality requires that we do. Given a finite (at a particular time) amount of money, spending more on disease X requires spending less on something else. And this inevitably means that, at some point, we do have to consider the costs of particular actions: quantify human life.”

All the time, Senile Old Guy, it happens all the time.

A politician thundering “You can’t put a value on a human life” is about as meaningless as the same bloke with “We must make sure this sort of thing never happens again!” (about every event from Anita Cobby’s murder to this year’s bushfires – the assertion never survives a post audit) Sarah Helter-Skelter’s tears about Darrel Lea Chocolates closing down and “Three cheers for the ref.”

harrys on the boat
#1219100, posted on March 10, 2014 at 3:57 pm
The sad thing is the main issue should be how the ABC facilitated and then excused 2 people buying a child to rape and sexually abuse along with their p3dophile mates. This act should be another nail in the ABC coffin.

Abbott should shut it down now. He has his ducks lined up and the ammo.

I said it before, he lacks killer instinct. He could have screwed Gillard (!) on a double disillusion at 62% 2PP.

As if there is not a more reasonable reason than this. I’d say he is duty bound to act.

Because the percentage of homosexual kiddy fiddlers is higher than the percentage of homosexuals in society. Of course it doesn’t mean that all homosexuals are kiddy fiddlers, just that they are more likely to be one.

Every action in a kiddy fiddler’s life is devoted to procuring victims. Becoming ‘partners’ in order to adopt kids is a perfect cover for them.

Why do you presume I’m an atheist?

This:

The reason I continue to rip you and C.L about the justification of your ideas is that even if you are right – you are not going to convince anyone else beyond the small proportion of church going Christians.

As CL said above it is deliberately denying the rights of the child to have a mother.

Are you serious? Will you take kids off widowers or not?

If its anything like the 3rd world I have seen the’ll be some agressive male organiser, or “handler” involved in the “transaction” taking a very large cut (like 50-70%) or somehow swindling the surrogate mothers out of 100%.

You’ve just presumed none of it is above board. Perhaps correct, but no evidence.

Poor Wee Willy “Tits McGee” Shortcrust… can’t take a single trick these days…

THE Labor regime to oversee $10 billion in annual retirement savings has been thrown into disarray by a shock ruling from the federal workplace umpire to sideline two key advisers over conflicts of interest.

Heeding industry complaints, Justice Ross removed Vicki Allen and Stephen Gibbs from a sweeping review of superannuation funds because “there would be or could be a conflict” over their private interests.

Ms Allen is a director of MTAA Super, a not-for-profit industry fund that has won union support in the past to be listed on industrial awards. Mr Gibbs is a director of Australian Ethical, which runs a super fund and has links to other funds that would seek to be selected as default options.

Neither Mr Gibbs nor Ms Allen could be contacted for comment yesterday. Both are highly regarded finance executives and Justice Ross made no criticism of either in his decision. However, both are directors of super funds that might seek approval from Fair Work to manage billions of dollars, raising questions over conflicts.

Because the percentage of homosexual kiddy fiddlers is higher than the percentage of homosexuals in society. Of course it doesn’t mean that all homosexuals are kiddy fiddlers, just that they are more likely to be one.

Every action in a kiddy fiddler’s life is devoted to procuring victims. Becoming ‘partners’ in order to adopt kids is a perfect cover for them.

Citation needed.

As for your presumption about atheism. Very few people go to church now. I’d rather that C.L and DB succeed over the current crop in the LNP. They won’t appealing to a Greens sized minority.

And now for the ‘Oh, FFS’ moment of the day, from the Allen & Unwin mailout -

Rob Oakeshott takes us behind the scenes and into life as an independent during the Gillard government in THE INDEPENDENT MEMBER FOR LYNE. This candid, compelling memoir is written with the same passion that drove him into politics, and was the hallmark of his presence in parliament during the last three years.

The “widower” by that very description means he was married and lost his wife through death. That is a totally different situation from setting out to purposely create a child to sell off to strangers.

So which version of Blade Runner you guys like best? I know a lot of purists insist on (one of) the Director’s cuts (with the less happy ending and no voice-over), but I actually prefer the original studio release.

…hear what is said and how it’s said, about what’s on the ABC, ’4 Corners’ programme TONIGHT re: the baby buying, raping and trading homosexual men, and further investigations into Their International Child Sex Trading Networks.

I said it before, he lacks killer instinct. He could have screwed Gillard (!) on a double disillusion at 62% 2PP.

Dot, you’re big on assertion, less so on the tin tacks. You can’t trigger a double dissolution from opposition. It is a mechanism by which a Government can attempt to get legislation through a hostile senate by going to the polls and then having a joint sitting. The only route to an early poll was through a vote of no confidence. There was no chance of that succeeding unless some of the cross benchers sided with him.

Yeah, exactly… that’s not to say I didn’t like the alternate endings – and the twist it implies about Deckard – but we need at least one lighter note to end on (and it’s not like it was an outright happy ending anyway).

Of course the rights of the child are a consideration. You seem to think adoption means you are free, however, if there is any exchange of money ( to be their parent), you are enslaved. Very sloppy thinking. You’re just morally outraged. No kids get hurt from such an exchange.

Adoption is not surrogacy. This is the same tactic you used during your Spanish Surrogacy debate with Dover.

It’s a moral argument, and they are always tricky to explain in an amoral society.

You are confronting the fact that many here think people should not be a commodity. If slave sellers had argued that they were just selling the work of the slaves, not the slaves themselves, would you still think it wrong? (Mind – it’s not the slave getting the money, it’s the slave seller.)

What if you gave me $1000 for a puppy and I explained to you that you weren’t buying the pup, just the right to act as its legal guardian? Would that change anything? We don’t own children, so I guess you’re right that we can’t actually sell them, but I think you’re splitting very, very fine hairs when you try to say that selling the legal guardianship of a child is not turning that child into a commodity.

George Harasz, 49, and Douglas Wirth, 45, of Glastonbury, withdrew a deal with prosecutors that would have given them suspended prison sentences and probation, according to reports. The surprise move comes as new allegations by three more adopted children surfaced Friday.
Comments (289)
By Erik Ortiz / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Abbott should have went for the vote of no confidence. He had an opportunity to do this. The whole pairing thing was utterly bizarre.

Dot, today you’re just full of it. Even if Abbott abandoned pairing (which is a long established convention in Parliament), he never ever had the numbers to bring on a successful vote of no confidence.

And further to Fleeced’s request for sci-fi and dodgy 80′s music, I also present THIS…

You were not truly an 80s kid if you didn’t get up early on Saturday mornings to watch Thunderbirds, Star Blazers, and Battle of the Planets on Channel 9 before the morning (kids) version of ‘Hey Hey its Saturday’…

Dot, don’t you think that the end and the means to the end are two separate issues? Two very different events can lead to the same outcomes, but surely that doesn’t mean both events are equally desirable?

He should have. The Right have to fight them harder and more unrelenting than they fight us. Absolutle ruthlessness is whats needed. How many of them have links to Milton Orkopoulos, or one of the scores of other ALP rockspiders? How many went out with Craig Thompson? And What about Gillards partner and the theft of the Calgorlie widows and childrens funds. And what about that “Senior labor figure” and the what ocurred at the Victorian teen young labour camp?

Abbott right now has the material to rid Australia of the top leadership layer of the ALP once and for all and yet he sits on his hands.

“I stand corrected. Abbott should have went for the vote of no confidence. He had an opportunity to do this. The whole pairing thing was utterly bizarre.”

Awww Dot, you need to know your parliament and what it can and cannot do, does and does not do and the conventions it has recognised for a bizarre number of years before spluttering what it should and should not do.

Even if Abbott abandoned pairing (which is a long established convention in Parliament), he never ever had the numbers to bring on a successful vote of no confidence.

I was probably wrong at the time, never chipped for it and never learnt the lesson.

I want to know why pairing ought to have been stuck to. Rudd raised revenue from liquor excise without the requisite laws being passed (back in 2008). Why should have Abbott given labor any relief after that illegality?

Awww Dot, you need to know your parliament and what it can and cannot do, does and does not do and the conventions it has recognised for a bizarre number of years before spluttering what it should and should not do.

Ellen of Tasmania
#1219165, posted on March 10, 2014 at 4:44 pm
Why? The result is the same.

Dot, don’t you think that the end and the means to the end are two separate issues? Two very different events can lead to the same outcomes, but surely that doesn’t mean both events are equally desirable?

” Awww Dot, you need to know your parliament and what it can and cannot do, does and does not do and the conventions it has recognised for a bizarre number of years before spluttering what it should and should not do.

Any advice for Rudd who collected taxes illegally?“

Don’t know what you are referring to Dot, merely trying to correct a misconception that just because you want it to be so doesn’t mean it must or can be so.

Parliamentary conventions, formal and informal, abound for good practical reasons and don’t often get upset for momentary political advantage, because then both sides are at risk of chicanery and the parliament becomes unworkable.

Write to the main party Whips if you don’t like it. In their responses they’ll probably note that pairing has been in use for way more than half a century in this and overseas parliaments.

Another one with a cult following… I bought the collection on DVD recently when I saw it on special, but haven’t got around to re-watching it yet – I suspect it wouldn’t live up to my memory… dang impulse buys.

Another one with a cult following… I bought the collection on DVD recently when I saw it on special, but haven’t got around to re-watching it yet – I suspect it wouldn’t live up to my memory… dang impulse buys.

I bought the full Shintaro set for my old man as a christmas present a few years ago. I was half tempted to keep it for myself but gave it over and he loves it still to this day. I still haven’t managed to wrest it away from him for a watch of my own.

“Did you ever cut out and eye slot in your mother’s cane washing basket and put on your head, so as to look authentic? ”

No actually. I wasn’t brave enough to hook into mum’s or nanna’s washing day tools. We made up armour from cardboard boxes and concentrated much more on the weaponry ; great looking wooden swords with sheaths and the skills of star knife throwing , leaping from trees onto unsuspecting enemies below. What a time!

Another one with a cult following… I bought the collection on DVD recently when I saw it on special, but haven’t got around to re-watching it yet – I suspect it wouldn’t live up to my memory… dang impulse buys.

Watch it, its bod good and so bad at the same time. Pigsy, what a hornbag lol.

What was the one with a Shintaro like character who rode around in a Toyota Crown?
Australian TV was great. but lame, Fredd Bear, The Magic Circle Club, Adventure Island and batman in black and white in the afternoon

No actually. I wasn’t brave enough to hook into mum’s or nanna’s washing day tools. We made up armour from cardboard boxes and concentrated much more on the weaponry ; great looking wooden swords with sheaths and the skills of star knife throwing , leaping from trees onto unsuspecting enemies below. What a time!

The Libs can’t go to the next election with Barnett, he was tired and clapped out virtually before he arrived. They have three years to find a replacement or Sneakers will sneak in. They aren’t lookin’ good.

Coming in late on Peter Troung and the surrogacy story. This surrogacy was the prime mover in Putin’s ban on foreign adoption. The mother was Russian, the ABC were stooges willing or not in providing cover for these too, who were also strongly motivated by profit. Neither worked but they owned properties in the US and Australia and we’re travelling the world. From memory 400,000 cash was also seized from their bank accounts. They have been gay marriage poster boys in the US since Troung was around 20 years old and when they were first arrested got a lot of support from west coast US media. It was never made clear if the partner was the child’s biological father.
Peter Troung’ s video performances no doubt support his claim of victimhood.

I have the two Catweazle series on DVD, nic, but, sadly, the BBC won’t release the fine TV series, “The Eagle of the Ninth”. I’ve read the fine book by Rosemary Sutcliff thrice to my lads and we were all eagerly looking forward to seeing the new film, “The Eagle”; but we read that the film was being made as an anti-colonial critique of US foreign policy and, as soon as we saw the trailer, we saw that they’d completely subverted the story, and lost all interest.

George Pell believes abuse victims should be able to sue Catholic Church

Dan Box
The Australian
March 10, 2014 1:28PM

Cardinal George Pell has told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child

Cardinal George Pell has told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse he believes the Catholic Church should be able to be sued. Photo: Victor Sokolowicz Source: Supplied

IN a potentially significant admission, former Archbishop of Sydney Cardinal George Pell has told the abuse royal commission that he believes the Catholic Church should be able to be sued, despite a court’s ruling to the contrary in a landmark legal case.

The former Archbishop of Sydney told the royal commission he is “troubled” by his church’s conduct in the case of a former altar boy, John Ellis, that is widely seen as having prevented child victims of abuse by priests from suing the church.

In 2004 Mr Ellis sued his abuser Father Aidan Duggan and Cardinal George Pell in his role as Archbishop of Sydney.

Mr Ellis’ claim was dealt with under the Church’s “Towards Healing” process.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard that Mr Ellis ultimately lost his case when the NSW Court of Appeal effectively ruled that neither the then-Archbishop Pell, nor the church’s trustees could be sued.

The case established what’s known as the Church’s “Ellis defence”.

“The impact of this decision was, in effect, to insulate the Archdiocese from liability in circumstances such as these,” counsel assisting the commission, Gail Furness, said.

“The manner in which this litigation was conducted caused harm and suffering to Mr Ellis,” Ms Furness said.

The church subsequently pursued him for legal costs over several years, despite at least one senior cleric not intending to recover these costs, and in the knowledge that doing so was harming Mr Ellis’s health.

In a statement tendered to the commission, Cardinal Pell said he has concern over the way the case was handled, including the church’s refusal to accept the abuse took place even after receiving another separate complaint against the priest.

“Whatever position was taken by the lawyers during the litigation … my own view is that the Church in Australia should be able to be sued in cases of this kind,” Cardinal Pell’s statement said.

Through the Royal Commission, we have been reminded- yet again- that the Roman Catholic Church ignored the cries of raped and tortured children, moved the abusers around to allow them to continue their vile acts, and used funds meant for the poor for hush money and bribery. All under the watchful gaze of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary

That philosophy thing is run by a prick. Their questions are dishonest.

I don’t know if the guy is as you say but agree with the sentiments about the site. Very simplistic and rather pedestrian for a philosophy site. and the questions remind me of this episode from Yes, Prime Minister, particularly in relation to the Drowning Child scenario and equating that with donations to Oxfam.

TRISTAN EDIS
Electricity demand is set to fall for the fourth year running, guaranteeing Australia has little need for the mountains of proposed conventional generating capacity.
They just continue to make stuff up.

Senile Old Guy, for the sake of your self-respect, can you please change you pseudonym to something that better describes who you are? While you insist on degrading yourself with such a moniker, I don’t read a single comment you post. Thank you.

Was in the Emerald City’s CBD on business today at the right time and was lucky enough to have a grandstand view of NSW Governor, Marie Bashir, arriving at the NSW Parliament for a Commonwealth Day Luncheon. Much pomp and ceremony when her arrival was welcomed by the Scots College Pipe Band and The Scots College Cadets in full dress blackwatch tartan and the raising of the Governor’s flag. Very impressive.

From the Rosemary Sutcliff website, I was steered towards a torrent file of the six BBC episodes of “The Eagle of the Ninth” made from VHS recordings. It took nearly five hours to download the files, and then I had to convert the .AVI files to DivXs files because the audio didn’t work for me. The quality of the video is, for the most part, fair.
(Considering that the BBC refuses to release “The Eagle of the Ninth” on DVD, I thought my first time using this torrent thingy was warranted; as soon as TEotN’s available on DVD I’ll buy a legal copy.)